


Like a Fool, Try Again

by mammothluv



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-07
Updated: 2010-04-07
Packaged: 2017-10-08 18:30:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/78334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mammothluv/pseuds/mammothluv
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set not long after 6.12, "I Like You So Much Better When You're Naked."  Alex does his best to adjust to life without Izzie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like a Fool, Try Again

**Author's Note:**

> Grey's Anatomy belongs to Shonda Rimes and ABC. I'm not making any profit and no copyright infringement is intended.  
> Written for a prompt from waltzmatildah - "What we lost here is something better left alone,/ second steps been forgotten, will you tell me how they go?/ Set yourself, situate, like a fool try again,/ There's no one around you can remember being good for you." - 'Shame' by Matchbox 20

The day he told her it was over, Izzie and her stuff were gone before Alex got home from work No real goodbye, just the trailer and her room in Meredith's house cleared out and Meredith standing in the living room saying, "She's gone."

A week later, he could almost pretend she was never here at all if not for the fact that all his clothes are still shoved to one side of the closet, all his stuff on just one side of the bathroom sink. He briefly considered moving his things to her side but he doesn't have the energy. He'd still know it was her space anyway.

He can go to work every day and act like he's fine, act like this was what he wanted. He's the one who ended it after all. (He has to remind himself of that sometimes. Even then, he doesn't always believe it.) Probably no one expected them to work out anyway. To most of the Seattle Grace rumor mill he's just the asshole doctor who married the cancer patient because he thought she was dying and couldn't hack it when she didn't.

They don't know. They don't understand the way Izzie took his breath away every second of every day, the way he was always just a little in awe of the fact that someone like her could love someone like him. They don't know how he fell in love with her years ago and never stopped falling. They don't know his panic when she started slipping away. Izzie lived and he still couldn't hold on.

It's not just what he told Izzie, not just that she showed him he could have more or even that he deserved it. It's that she made him realize he wanted more, more than one night stands and meaningless sex with meaningless people. He wants more. He wanted more with Izzie but he knows now that chance evaporated somewhere in between the 'I do's and her recovery.

If only he could have held on tighter. If only she could have.

He's plugging the holes in his life the best he can but he's not stupid enough to think it's anything but temporary. He's back where he started. Back to nothing and no one.

Well, no one but Meredith. She's lying here in his bed right next to him looking almost as miserable as he feels.

She hasn't said a word since she showed up in his doorway. Just walked over to the bed and plopped down next to him with a heavy sigh. That's not the part that bothers him. He doesn't want to talk anyway.

What he wants to do is lash out, destroy something. Destroy someone. Himself, someone else. It doesn't matter. It's what he's used to. When he's hurt, he wants to hurt back.

It's not as easy as it used to be though. That wall between him in the world, Izzie toppled it. And dealing with these feelings isn't easy without it. Everything feels too close, too real. Which is probably why he tries to kiss Meredith because, without that, her being here in his bed feels cloyingly like friendship or family and that's the last thing he wants or needs. But of course it's Meredith so she just pulls away and smacks him on the arm while muttering, "Don't be stupid." And then she lays back down next to him, resting her head on his shoulder.

"It's okay to miss her even though you're pissed, you know. I do," she finally says. Her voice is quiet and sad.

"Whatever," he says, eyes still trained on the ceiling. He's not in the mood for new, improved, adult Meredith. Old Meredith would have brought tequila. Old Meredith would have had him drunk by now and would be telling him he was better off without Izzie. But new Meredith just lays here. New Meredith knows he's not anything approaching better off.

She doesn't say anything else so he focuses on the sound of her breathing. In, out, in, out. He thinks of Izzie then. The nights he spent with his head resting on her bed in the hospital, her hand in his. He waited in between her every labored breath just praying the next breath would come. He doesn't understand how they got from there to here.

It would be easier to be who he was five years ago right now. That Alex would have expected this. That Alex wouldn't have loved Izzie so completely in the first place. Alex before Seattle knew families and marriages never meant anything but heartbreak and hurt. He could be that Alex again, rebuild the walls and push everyone away.

He knows he's come close since Izzie left. It wouldn't be so difficult.

But, as much as he'd like to think it's bullshit, that saying that if you have a crappy family you eventually find your own. As much as he'd like to say his attempt at marriage with Izzie proved that one wrong. As much as he wants to hate everyone and everything, Meredith's right here reminding him of why he can't. She's right here being the one person who hasn't left him or let him down. The weight of her head resting on his chest is reminding him that he likes having someone care about him, reminding him that there's at least one person in the world who understands him and shows up for him anyway.

It's pissing him off but he's too tired to make her leave. He probably couldn't anyway.


End file.
